The Strokes play ‘Going To Babble On’ live for first time at Just Like Heaven 2026 as Julian Casablancas calls LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy the “Brett Favre of indie rock”

The Strokes played ‘Going To Babble On’ for the first time and likened James Murphy to Brett Favre at Just Like Heaven 2026.

The New York band headlined the festival at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California on Saturday (August 22), alongside joint headliners LCD Soundsystem.

Julian Casablancas and co. opened their encore with the first-ever live performance of ‘Going To Babble On’, taken from their seventh album ‘Reality Awaits‘, which was released in June.

It was one of four songs from the new album that made the setlist – alongside ‘Lonely In The Future’, ‘Going Shopping’ and ‘Dine N’Dash’ – and the set also saw a playful jibe from Casablancas to LCD Soundsystem’s Murphy.

“What a pleasant surprise. I thought you retired 15 years ago… just kidding,” he said, before branding him the “Brett Favre of indie rock” and adding: “Yeah, announcing we’re retiring tonight to make it cooler when we play a show in two years.”

Watch footage here:

The Favre comparison relates to the NFL legend’s multiple retirement U-turns over the years, with the quarterback having announced his retirement from the Green Bay Packers in 2008, only to change his mind and join the New York Jets later that year. He retired again before reversing the decision once more to join the Minnesota Vikings.

Similarly, LCD Soundsystem announced their split in 2011 with a farewell show at Madison Square Garden, only to reunite five years later. They have toured and played festivals intermittently in the years since and released the ‘American Dream‘ album in 2017.

The Strokes played: 

‘Lonely In The Future’ 
‘Hard To Explain’ 
‘Juicebox’ 
‘Going Shopping’ 
‘Take It Or Leave It’ 
‘Someday’ 
‘Life Is Simple In The Moonlight’ 
‘Reptilia’ 
‘Dine N’Dash’ 
‘One Way Trigger’ 
‘You Only Live Once’ 
‘Ize Of The World’ 
‘Automatic Stop’ 
‘The Adults Are Talking’ 

Encore:
‘Going To Babble On’ 
‘Selfless’

The Strokes also gave ‘Lonely In The Future’ its live debut last week at Summer Sonic Tokyo, while they were also joined by Charli XCX for ‘Take It Or Leave It’ at Outside Lands, introducing her as “the queen of album sales”.

NME gave ‘Reality Awaits’ four stars, writing: “Whether unleashing disses or getting deep into the weird and wonderful, a quarter of a century on from their debut, The Strokes sound more alive and locked in than they have in years. While ‘Reality Awaits’ does have its more dud moments – the opening one-two of ‘Psycho Shit’ and Dine N’Dash’ are a little meandering, while closer ‘Tyrants On The Mellow Moon’ similarly lacks the desired impact – it’s proof that letting bands go in unexpected directions can pay off big time.”

Their ‘Reality Awaits’ world tour continues around North America this month, before reaching the UK and Ireland in October. The dates include two nights at London’s O2, followed by dates in Newcastle, Manchester and Dublin. See all the dates here and find any remaining tickets here.